Whistling Past the Graveyard
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Besides Hell and death, Sam forgot his brother also had to handle waking up buried alive.


**Whistling Past the Graveyard**  
K Hanna Korossy

They had to dig up enough graves for salt-and-burns without needing to do so for other purposes, but that was the job sometimes. Or at least, that was the job sometimes since Dean had come back. During the summer beforehand, Sam's whole purpose had been hunting and dispatching demons. Now, they were looking for regular, traditional hunts again along with demon-chasing, and Sam couldn't help chafe a little at the wasted time. Lilith was still out there. Hundreds of demons Jake had let out of Hell still roamed free. Seals were being broken.

And the Winchesters were in a small New Jersey cemetery digging up an ordinary grave.

But Dean wanted to "get back in the saddle," and Sam couldn't quite blame him for not being gung ho about hunting denizens of Hell, not yet. Not after being trapped down there with demons, probably tortured by them, for months. So they'd gone back to their old job, and Sam did a little hunting secretly on the side and tried not to be impatient to get back to bigger prey.

"Think I got it."

Dean's shovel thunked against hollow wood, and Sam's attention snapped back to the matter at hand. He wasn't really there for guard duty; Ashford Bixby was resting in peace, as far as they knew. The dirt was soft after the previous day's rain but also heavier, and they'd switched off digging to give each other breaks. Sam refocused on his one job, aiming the flashlight at the half-uncovered coffin. "You need help?" he asked.

Dean shoved a shoulder against a small buckle of moist earth and rocks and shook his head. "Nah, it's unstable enough. You just stay up there and play lamppost." A smirk over one shoulder. "Think you can handle that, Sparky? Didn't get too rusty there?"

Sam mildly called him something vulgar and made sure the light was steady. Dean's comment had been spoken in jest, but it hadn't escaped Sam how his brother didn't like darkness anymore. They never talked about it, but the bathroom light was always on at night now.

Dean cleared off enough dirt to finally be able to lift the coffin's heavy lid—no use breaking through thick oak if you didn't have to—and reveal the mummified body within. "Sorry, Ash," he said under his breath as he went through the mummified corpse's pockets. Bixby might have moved on, but his wife was having a little trouble doing the same, and naturally the lock of hair keeping her here had been buried with her dear departed husband. Hunts rarely went the easy route.

Dean crowed in success, and Sam leaned a little more over the hole to see. The ringlet of brown hair, tied with a faded red ribbon, had been tucked into the old man's breast pocket. Dean threw Sam a grin so unabashed that Sam couldn't help echo it, then dug the lighter out of his pocket and set fire to the small memento.

A breeze rose up in the cemetery, like a final sigh of the departing.

And under Sam's feet, the loose earth shifted.

He had to jump back not to tumble in with it. "De—!"

That was all he had time for before the cascade of dirt and rocks rolled down against the open lid of the coffin. It hit hard enough to slam the heavy wooden cover shut, catching Dean in the legs as he stood inside and knocking him down into the casket with a startled grunt. The closed coffin was instantly covered with a two-foot-deep mound of fresh soil.

"Dean!" Sam dropped the flashlight and grabbed for the shovel instead, hopping down into the open grave to start digging. "Dean! Hang on."

Between the layer of loamy soil covering the coffin and the heavy wood of the lid, Dean probably couldn't hear him, and Sam shouldn't have picked up anything either besides the soft _shuff_ of his shoveling and the rasp of his breath. But muffled and faint, he could still hear Dean.

Yelling in fear.

Sam swallowed and worked faster. Dean was claustrophobic, but that was probably the least of their worries right now. He didn't remember Hell; Sam was sure of that, but he'd woken up in a grave only weeks before, dug himself out through plank wood and soil. It had to have been a nasty welcome back, and Sam could only imagine what memories this was reviving. The coffin would be musty with the smell of death and graveyard dirt, the air thin and dusty, the space tight. Dean didn't freak out easily, but hard thumps vibrated through the earth Sam was standing in, and his cries got louder with the removal of each layer.

"I'm coming! Dean, calm down, I'll get you out in a minute." Sam was shouting it, no longer mindful of anyone who might hear them or the panic that laced his own words or anything but Dean _buried alive_ under his feet, going out of his mind.

The shovel scraped wood, and Sam shifted around to unearth the rest of it. Dirt rolled in to replace some of what he was digging away, but Sam was making progress. Not fast enough, though; Dean was pounding so hard that Sam nearly lost his balance once. The cries continued, but with inarticulate, broken syllables and wordless sounds of terror.

Flinching, Sam threw the shovel topside and braced himself against the crumbling wall. There was still a lot of soil piled on top the coffin, but he'd reached the end of his patience. Pulling in a breath, Sam grabbed the coffin lid and heaved it up toward himself.

He was immediately buried up to his shins in moist loam and squeezed in between the unstable grave wall and the casket lid, but he couldn't've cared less. Sam's full attention was on his brother as Dean lurched up out of the coffin, away from the now-disheveled corpse, and scrambled mindlessly up the opposite side of the grave.

Dirt began to rain down on them both, sending Dean into a coughing fit between grunts and sharp whines.

"Dean. Dean!" Sam snapped, reaching over the coffin lid to snag his brother's waist. "Take it easy, Dean—you're out. You're out. You're okay."

He might as well have saved his breath. Dean strained against his grip, clawing against the unstable dirt walls, rambling wildly under his breath. Sam had to press against him to hear what he was saying.

_Can't go back. Can't. Please. No. Can't._

Sam flinched. He didn't know if Dean meant the grave or Hell, wasn't sure Dean even knew. But neither was a good option.

Clearly, there'd be no reasoning with Dean while he was surrounded by dirt and death. And staying there any longer threatened to collapse the grave onto them both. Sam let go of the coffin lid and set his stance as best he could in the unstable footing, grabbed Dean at waist and thigh, and heaved up.

He got a faceful of earth for it, but he shut his eyes against it and went by feel, shoving at Dean's knees, then shins, then feet. When he finally felt his brother roll completely out of the hole, Sam coughed and scrambled up after. The grave wall kept giving way under his hands, and for a second he thought he might lose the fight and end up joining Ashford in his eternal rest. But then his hand was caught in a damp, shaky clasp, and he used the leverage of his brother to pull himself free.

It took a moment of coughing and breathing before Sam could roll himself over to look down into the now-two-thirds-full hole. Well, at least most of their refilling work was done. Bixby's coffin was still open under all the soil, but Sam couldn't bring himself to care very much.

He turned his head the other way, to see Dean's trembling, curled figure. His eyes were pressed shut, as was his jaw, as if everything inside him might spill out if he didn't keep it firmly locked away. His hands were bloody and already bruising, and Sam could just imagine how hard they'd had to claw at the inside of the coffin to do that kind of damage in so brief a time.

"Dean," he said quietly, his voice still rough from the dirt he'd breathed in. "Hey. Y'all right, man?"

Another tremor ran through Dean. Reaction, Sam recognized, adrenaline. Fear. It seemed to take great effort to work his mouth. "'M sorry." It was a bare whisper, raw with emotion. "Sorry, Sammy."

Sam pushed himself up, watching as Dean's eyes jerked open to follow his movement. They looked a little wild, like they had when Dean had first started hearing the hell hounds coming after him, and he swallowed several times. He was still shivering, and Sam shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it over Dean's. His brother's fingers flexed convulsively around the collar.

"'M sorry." It was layered with humiliation now, Dean turning away, trying to push his shuddering body upright.

Sam chewed his lip, wanting to help but not sure how. While they'd always played therapist for each other, he couldn't even begin to understand what demons Dean was fighting now. He himself had been dead once, but Sam had no memory of it, and Dean hadn't buried him. He hadn't let Sam be gone that long.

Sam stood instead, ignoring Dean's flinch, and grabbed the shovel. Sam honestly couldn't care less about Ashford's grave just then, but Dean could use the time to pull himself together. He slunk back against a tree and sat there huddled under Sam's jacket, watching his little brother refill the hole.

"You remember when Doc Benton had me on his table?" Sam asked casually as he worked.

Dean's ragged breathing behind him was his only answer.

Sam nodded to himself. "When he got me tied down like that… Man, he didn't even have to touch me, just…waving that scoop thing around and talking about taking out my eye… I was losing it, dude. I was ready to cry like a baby."

They were brothers; they were competitive; they were proud. It wasn't easy to say, or to remember his breathy panic at being totally helpless while Benton calmly talked about removing parts of his body. Or the way Sam had clung to Dean when his brother had come to the rescue at the last minute. But revisiting it now wasn't even a decision.

Sam paused, breathing a laugh. "You never gave me a hard time about that. I practically started bawling on you, and you just acted like it was fine. No big deal. And after a while, I believed you."

The soft snort behind him had him glancing back to where Dean sat in the shadows, watching him. "Right." His voice was thin, raw, but determined. "So this is the part where I feel better…'bout freaking out like a scared girl…because you've been there, too." It figured Dean would regain his sarcasm before his equilibrium.

"No," Sam said solidly, scooping in the last few shovelfuls of earth and tamping it down. He hoped that was the last they ever heard of either Bixby. He turned back to face Dean. "I've never been there. Not even close."

Dean stared at him a moment, then looked away.

So much for a simple little hunt. Maybe the demons weren't the real challenges. Not the kind Sam could exorcise, anyway.

Then again, as Sam well knew, there was more than one way to fight a demon.

He gathered up their shovels and slid their weapons bag over one shoulder. Then he reached a hand down to Dean.

It took a minute, but his brother grasped it, palm dry and cool now against Sam's work-flushed skin, and let himself be hauled up.

They walked out slow, in no particular hurry, shoulders occasionally bumping. Comfortable in silence.

This kind of job was important, too, Sam mused. Not just because Dean still had some things to work through, although that in itself should have been enough. But there was no such thing as a small hunt, their Dad had said, and Sam had forgotten. He'd forgotten a lot those last few months.

Maybe Dean wasn't the only one who needed to find his stride again.

"You really were freaking out on Benton's table," Dean suddenly spoke up, still hoarse.

Sam blinked at him, then scowled. "Seriously? Dude, you practically _jumped_ out of the grave back there."

Dean's shoulder lifted. "You were _babbling_, dude."

Sam shoved the car keys at him; few things steadied Dean like driving. "Right. Because you were so calm and collected a few minutes ago."

"I had it under control."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Whatever, man. I think being dead messed with your memories."

"What's your excuse?"

They looked at each other, and broke down into uncontrollable laughter.

Maybe it was a little hysterical, but there was no one else besides them there to hear it, anyway.

**The End**


End file.
